Sylhet, a city in north-eastern Bangladesh, is some 50km from the border with India. But when the government awarded a $250m contract in April to build a new airport terminal in the city, the Indian bidder lost out to a Chinese firm, the Beijing Urban Construction Group. In June China granted duty-free access to 97% of Bangladesh’s exports. And this month Bangladesh, seemingly despairing of a decade-long negotiation with India on a water-sharing pact for the Teesta river, asked China to finance a $1bn water-management project instead.

Bangladesh came into being thanks in part to India: in 1971 its army intervened on the side of separatists battling the Pakistani army in what was then East Pakistan. Ever since, ties between the two countries have been close. But many Bangladeshis have come to see India as a patronising and presumptuous ally. “They don’t really believe that we are independent,” says a Bangladeshi journalist.